


Walk on the Wild Side

by karrenia_rune



Category: Fables - Aesop, The Boy Who Cried Wolf - Fandom
Genre: Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Fic or Treat Meme, Gen, Playing Tricks on mortals, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:04:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6884821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retelling from the wolf's point of view;  if he were a member of the Irish Fae, called here Mac Tire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk on the Wild Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chokolatte (ChokolatteJedi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/gifts).



Disclaimer: from Aesop's Fable "The Boy who Cried Wolf:" written for Chokolattejedi's request in the 2016 Once upon a Time Exchange  
as an extra treat, from the Wolf's POV. The title was inspired by Lou Reed's song "Walk on the Wild Side:"

 

"Walk on the Wild Side" 

 

On the eve of Samhain he comes to the wild woods, and yes, they are still wild and sprawling and green and not yet conducive to humans harvesting them for the wood and the mundane game and herbs to be found within them. 

The short-lived creatures, well short-lived by the standards of his people, the youngest among them counted as an adult on average around maybe two or three hundred summers. He's young, and according to his uncle at a mere two hundred and fifty hardly an adult and certainly not to be trusted with the responsibility of any significance. Thus, he has a great deal of time to spend as he sees fit. His name is Mac Tire and he's curious, perhaps more curious than he should be he concerned with what his elders may think.

At first it was tentative, a mere feeling out, only by night when he could sneak away from the enclave given over to his people. Even among the Fae there are hierarchies, matters of conduct and precedence; and the powerful and influential among them.

He did learn what these new settlers call themselves, Humans. He savors the taste of the strange new word on his tongue. He wants to know more, he thinks as he crouches down on his haunches on the edge of a recently plowed field.

These people tend to migrate from place to place in packs, like wolves and yet unlike wolves, who mate for life and travel to where the best hunting is. Humans, as he has learned by hours spent covertly studying them and learning smatterings of their language, tend to find a place to make their homes and once there stay there like the roots of the trees.

He watches as they live, work, eat, sleep, even mate as regular as the cycles of the seasons, throw thatch on the roofs of their cottages, harvests the crops they grow, and, most interesting of all, raise their pups, correction, children. This too is a new word in his vocabulary. These humans did not do as mortal wolves nor Fae wolves do either, but there was a certain uncanny similarity.

One child, in particular, came to his attention, a boy whose eyes were a shade of green in some lights and hazel in others. His hair was an unremarkable shade of straw blond which he wore long tumbling down onto his shoulders so that often in the course of his playing with other boys and girls or carrying out his chores; he was obliged to brush it away from his eyes. 

The boy is called Barlow and the Wolf felt an almost electric pull between them. 

One of Barlow's tasks was to watch over a flock of sheep, woolly useful creatures that the humans relied on for meat, clothing, and which had to be protected zealously because ordinary wolf packs in the area found them easier prey than their wilder cousins in the surrounding hills.

He may be a wolf and with all the instincts and prowess of the wolf and he could find much better prey in the hills and dales of Otherland,; which means he does not care for mortal sheep. That being said, he is also Fae and the Fae have garnered a bit of a reputation for playing tricks on mortals.\

So, on the spur of the moment, Mac Tire decides that he's spent enough time observing these humans and the time has come to hatch a small gambit. 

He figures that with a little bent of his own magic and with twisting things as they are just a bit of out their true alignment Barlow will declare to all and sundry that a wolf pack is attacking the sheep. Once, or twice, they will believe him and cause a panic such that the sheep will stampede and Barlow will be forced to search hither and yon to round them all up again.

Ah, but once is not enough, not' not enough at all' Mac Tire muses aloud. "Twice, and yet again, three is a very powerful number, And then once, again, just for good measure, and alas, the poor mortal Boy! But Naturally!" cackled Mac Tire, "Now, to suit thought into action" he added as he leaped out of his half crouch and ran off to carry out his plan.

Barlow happened to be passing by and felt a disquiet feeling pass over him and he gave an involuntary shudder pass through his young frame. 

Why this should be so he cannot fathom. He has never felt anything like this until now. Unlike some of the tales he's heard told over the fires on a winter night when he'd accompanied the men gathering wood for the winter, he knows that were boys and girls in other villages who have been known to possess the uncanny sensitivity to the unseen, the unknown. 

These children are few and far between and have been known to have experienced extraordinary events and go on adventures. Barlow sometimes envies these children, not the danger, but the adventures, because life on the hills with the sheep, placid but dull creatures, he dreams of adventures, of coming up with his own extraordinary tales of derring-do and beautiful maidens and handsome men. Barlow knows that he was born a simple village lad and will grow up to be a simple village man, and probably die here. If this fact bows him down and causes him to resent the role he never shows it. He comes from a long line of simple village people who have instilled in him that the harder the struggle is, the more important it is to struggle valiantly. 

So, he smiles and carries on, shrugging off the uncanny feeling of being watched, the way he would shrug off a cold water-soaked cloak and hang it on a cloak stand in the front of his cottage whenever he came in from the hills or from the fields. But even as he muses on this pragmatic view, Barlow, yet wonders perhaps, yes, perhaps, there might be something more out there for him, The wonder of it, he does not stop to think that the wonder but undercut by a stronger much stronger current of danger. Barlow shrugs and falls asleep as soon as his head hits his goose-down pillow.


End file.
